On Her Way to College Despite Her Family’s Eviction

Rene Blas on the roof of Covenant House in Manhattan, where she is in the Rights of Passage program for older teenagers.Credit
J. B. Reed for The New York Times

The worst moment of the fall came when Rene Blas, 19, and her family were evicted from their Harlem apartment and had to scatter in three directions: her parents and younger brother to a family shelter in Brooklyn, her older brother and his girlfriend and infant to another family shelter, and Rene, because she was over 18, to a city women’s shelter.

“In the beginning I thought it would be the end of the world,” Ms. Blas said. “I was always their girl. I got spoiled.”

She stayed at a women’s shelterin the Bronx “about 30 minutes,” she said, long enough for someone to steal her money while she slept. She left and spent two days sleeping in Morningside Park.

“Finally a lady said I should call 311 and ask specifically for this place,” she said.

Ms. Blas now lives in Covenant House, an affiliate of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. She joined the Rights of Passage program, a bridge for homeless youths who need permanent housing.

Until September, Ms. Blas seemed to be on a straight track to her future. Her father was a United States Army sergeant when he married her mother, a German, and she grew up in Heidelberg, speaking German. In 2002 her family moved to New York, to be closer to her father’s family. It was a hard move for Ms. Blas, who was in the sixth grade and did not make friends in her new school in Harlem.

“I used to hide in the library,” she said. “That’s why I was able to skip seventh grade.” She studied “all day, every day.”

At A. Philip Randolph High School, she joined the track team.

“One day we were practicing, sophomore year, and I sort of got curious about it,” she said about her first encounter with a hurdle. “I jumped over it. The next meet, I was running the 400-meter hurdles.” A budding star, she competed for Randolph in many citywide track events.

She was ready to start college in the fall of 2008, but her father lost his job as a security guard, and the family fell behind on the rent.

“We got evicted, so I couldn’t get my financial aid papers,” she said. “College was going to cost $6,000 a year I don’t have.” The landlord would not let them back into the apartment, even to get the one folder with her family’s tax returns from 2007, and her school schedule.

With Covenant House’s help, she has found a job at Starbucks, and plans to begin studying nursing at Lehman College in January. Catholic Charities has used $300 from the Neediest Cases Fund to help pay for books. She plans to run track, move onto campus and continue working.

“I get excited,” she said. “I can’t wait to go to school.”

Meanwhile, she stays in touch with her family, calling her 14-year-old brother every morning at 6, to wake him up in time to get to his high school in the Bronx. Her mother leaves at 5 a.m. for her job in a Hunts Point laundry, and her father is still looking for work.

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But Covenant House may be hard pressed to provide such opportunities for the growing number of homeless young people arriving at its door. In the last three months alone, it had 450 new residents, 27 percent higher than in the same period last year.

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The 106th annual campaign of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund closed in January 2018. The Fund has provided direct assistance to those struggling in New York and beyond. Our next campaign begins this fall. Donations made now will go to the 107th annual campaign.